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By John Reppion with artwork by Abby Perry
George A. Romero may very well be responsible for the creation of the definitive cinematic zombie back in 1968 but there is no denying that the spectre of the living dead has been lurking in the dark corners of man’s imagination since time immemorial. In the article which follows I will endeavour to examine a few of the beliefs which have existed and continue to exist concerning the re-animation of the dead and the phenomenon we might refer to as “zombie-ism”. This is by no means a completely in-depth or wholly inclusive examination of all such ideas as that would require a great deal more research on my part and doubtlessly fill several hundred pages. Therefore, please consider this piece a taster; designed to whet the appetite of any budding zombie folklorists out there. Here’s hoping it encourages some of you to do a little digging of your own.
Aptrgang
Aptrgang (meaning “after goer”) is a word from Norse mythology describing the reanimated corpse of a Viking. These creatures (also referred to as draugrs) were said to treat their, often treasure filled, burial mounds (barrows) as a kind of home or base which they protected and resided within most of the time. However, aptrgangs were also fond of wandering and were often encountered out on the road or in the open countryside where they sometimes attacked and killed livestock and unwary travellers. It is not entirely clear if aptrgangs were supposed to be literal undead versions of their previous selves or if they were the product of some supernatural presence that entered the corpse after the prior owner’s essence had gone but, they are often depicted as harbouring feelings of hatred and jealousy towards the living. When mentioned in the Icelandic sagas aptrgangs are often descried as being hel-blár ("black/blue as death") or ná-folr ("corpse-pale”) with enormous strength. It was believed that, like all other supernatural creatures, the aptrgang could be harmed by iron weapons but, anyone attempting to “kill” a draugr must follow a strict procedure: First the aptrgang must be fought in unarmed combat and wrestled into submission, next the creature must be decapitated (often with its own sword or axe) and finally its remains must be burned and its ashes thrown out to sea or scattered to the winds. If our hero was unlucky enough to be slain by an aptrgang during such combat they too would eventually rise from the grave to share their killer’s fate as a walking corpse.
Whilst many of the above mentioned characteristics are recognisably
“zombie-like”, aptrgangs also had a more overtly supernatural
side; sometimes attributed powers such as shape-shifting and precognition
which one might more readily associate with Were-wolves or Vampires (indeed,
when dispatching an aptrgang it was sometimes recommended that the slayer
should drive a stake through the creatures heart prior to burning the
body).
It is worth noting that Aptrgangs are not the only undead creatures mentioned in Norse mythology, there were also haugbuis (from haugr meaning "howe" or "barrow"), for example; much less bothersome than the draugrs, they remained within the confines of their tombs unless disturbed by trespassers or grave robbers. The undead were (and are) very real to many people in Scandinavia and certain practices have long been employed to guard against the unwelcome return of loved ones. One such custom is to have a bricked up doorway in one’s home which is opened up only in order for an occupied coffin to pass outward through it. The “corpse door” would then be bricked up again so that, should he or she be re-animated, the deceased could not retrace their final journey and re-enter the house in the same manner they had exited it. To this day coffins are still carried feet first for the same reason; so that the person within may not have a clear view of the path taken to their burial and therefore easily retrace the journey to its source.
Jiangshi 
Jiangshi (pronounced geungsi in Cantonese) means “stiff corpse” in pinyin Mandarin, and refers to the creatures which some Westerners now know as Chinese hopping corpses. The idea of the hopping corpse comes from the concept of “travelling a corpse over a thousand li” which was a service purportedly offered by Tao priests whereby they would “train” the corpses of those who had died far away from their families to hop home. By sending these corpses homeward under their own momentum the families would avoid the costly, time consuming and potentially hazardous business of transporting the body by conventional means. However, as legend would have it, some jiangshis seemed keen to make certain unscheduled detours from their journeys and ended up attacking and killing living creatures in order to absorb life essence (qì) from them (this sometimes, though not always, meant bodily devouring them). Like the aptrgangs of Norse mythology, jiangshis are considered by some scholars to have more in common with Vampires than zombies and many modern day Chinese horror movies portray the creatures as bloodsuckers. However, when Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” was first published in China in 190?, the book was given the title of "blood-sucking jiangshi", thus indicating that the creature in the story’s thirst for blood was not an already established part of the jiangshi myth.
Revenant 
Revenant is a French term dating back to the Middle Ages which translates literally as “returning one”. Revenants were usually described as having been wicked or godless people during their living years who returned from the grave to terrorise the living. Their resurrection seems to have much in common with what we would usually think of as “hauntings”; they are basically corporeal ghosts. Revenants were often carriers of disease or else harbingers of death; sometimes calling out the names of those who would soon die as they wandered the empty village streets by night.
There are several surviving Medieval accounts of Revenants
in Europe, a number of which were recorded by William of Newburgh (1136
CE* – 1198 CE) in his “Historia rerum Anglicarum” (“History
of English Affairs”). William was a twelfth century monk and historian
who was born, lived and died in Yorkshire, in the north east of England.
Prefacing his accounts of the medieval undead Newburgh wrote "were
I to write down all the instances of this kind which I have ascertained
to have befallen in our times, the undertaking would be beyond measure
laborious and troublesome", thus indicating that, so far as William
was concerned at least, the dead were extremely reluctant to remain deceased
during that time. One of the stories recorded in the book tells of an
evil man who, whilst on the run from the law, meets and marries a woman
in York. The criminal doesn’t trust his new wife however, and ends
up falling from a great height and mortally injuring himself whist attempting
to spy on her. "A Christian burial, indeed, he received, though unworthy
of it; but it did not much benefit him: for issuing, by the handiwork
of Satan, from his grave at night-time, and pursued by a pack of dogs
with horrible barkings, he wandered through the courts and around the
houses while all men made fast their doors, and did not dare to go abroad
on any errand whatever from the beginning of the night until the sunrise,
for fear of meeting and being beaten black and blue by this vagrant monster."
William goes on to describe how, after a number of people were murdered by the ghoul, the townsfolk disinterred the man’s corpse, tore out his heart and burnt it and the body until only ashes remained.
Zonbi 
Zonbi is a term used by devotees of the traditional African/Roman
Catholic hybrid religion called Vodoun (also known as Voudou, Vodun or
Voodoo) and originating from the Caribbean island of Haiti situated on
the Western side of the island of Hispaniola, between the Caribbean Sea
and the North Atlantic Ocean. The rest of the island is now the Dominican
Republic, which gained independence in 1844. Hispaniola has had a turbulent
history, its indigenous people were dominated and enslaved by the Spanish
almost to the point of extinction only to then be replaced by African
slaves in the 1500’s. In 1697 a group of French pirates attacked
Hispaniola and managed to take over a third of the island, the area we
now know as Haiti. Vodu evolved in Haiti and has become the principle
religion of the country; a mixture of the slaver’s Roman Catholicism
and the slave’s native African beliefs. Vodu is a religion like
any other whose followers consider its practices to be a way of life.
However, whilst the vast majority of “servants of the spirits”
(as practitioners of Vodu often prefer to be known) are good, normal,
everyday people, the religion does have its darker side.
The boko is a Vodu priest (oungan) who will offer protection in the form of spells in exchange for money or services. The boko is said to work “with both hands” serving the spirits (lwa) with one hand and practicing magic with the other. Amongst the many spells the boko possess is the power to cause individuals to whither and die using a special magical powder. After the cursed person is buried they are exhumed from their resting place by the boko and restored into a trance like state of living death. Such unfortunate individuals are known as zonbis (or zombies).
Although at first glance one might think it easy to dismiss the concept of zonbis as an example of religious superstition or some kind of allegorical folktale, there people of Haiti take the idea very seriously indeed.
In 1997 Prof. Ron Littlewood (University College, London) and Dr. Chavannes Douyon (Polyclinique Medica, Port-au-Prince) published a joint paper entitled “Clinical findings in three cases of zombification”. The paper examined the cases of Haitians who were assumed by those around them to be zombies. The three individuals in question were eventually classified respectively as suffering from cataleptic schizophrenia, brain damage and a severe learning disability. However, short of the lack of a heartbeat or the onset of decomposition (neither of which feature in Vodu zonbi folklore) it is difficult to say what Dr. Douyon and Prof. Littlewood were expecting to find in order to officially classify their case studies as “the living dead”. The truth is, Vodu zombification is not only possible; it’s a scientifically proven fact.
Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is a neurotoxin found in the poisons secreted by the Australian blue ringed octopus, the California newt, the South American harlequin frog and the pufferfish, which is indigenous to the waters around Haiti. When administered to a person TTX attacks the nerves and symptoms can range from numbness to death depending on the dosage (TTX is approximately one thousand two hundred times more deadly than Cyanide in relative terms). The toxin can lead to a drop in blood pressure, a reduction in the rate of respiration, a weakening of the pulse and dilated pupils. As a result TTX can easily lead to patients being declared dead before they have actually expired. It is now known that the pufferfish is one of the main ingredients in boko zonbi powder.
To make a zonbi the boko must first administer the power to their victim. TTX does not need to be injected into the bloodstream so there is no need for any elaborate poisoned umbrella tip or blow dart type schemes. The powder can be slipped into food or drink or even blown into the face of the person. The victim soon becomes ill and eventually lapses into a coma, their life signs diminished by the toxin they appear dead to all but the most meticulous medical examiner. Bodies are buried quickly in Haiti because of the heat and the departed are often laid to rest within twenty four hours of their demise. Once entombed the zonbi must be “resurrected” within eight hours to prevent total suffocation. The brain does, however, usually suffer damage as a result of oxygen starvation caused by the TTX’s effect on the victim’s respiration. This actually works in the boko’s favour as the partial damage goes a little way towards making zonbis forget their past and remain compliant to their masters. Once out of the ground the newly re-born zonbi is force-fed a paste made from a plant of the genus Datura which causes amnesia and a semi permanent dulling of the senses. Should a zonbi be seen to begin behaving in a more normal and rational way at any stage during it’s limbo like existence more of the Datura paste will be given to re-zombify the individual.
These things are not superstition, to the citizens of Haiti they are fact and the island’s laws reflects that:
Haitian Penal Code Article 249:
“It shall also be qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made against any person of substances which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the person had been buried, the act shall be considered murder no matter what result follows.”
However, the question remains: why should anyone wish to turn another person into a zonbi? It is reported that zonbis are often used as slaves to perform intensive labour such as farming. Tales are told of Vodu priests such as Ti Joseph who was said to run a huge workforce of zonbis for the American Sugar Corporation in the early 1900’s, keeping all profits for himself. Large groups of zonbis could, of course, be used for many different kinds of work. Papa Doc Duvallier, who ruled Haiti as a dictatorship between 1967 and 1971, was said to have a private army of zonbis who never slept and would obey his every command (incidentally, Duvallier also vowed that he would return after his death to resume his dictatorship of Haiti but remains dead as I write this article.)
Zombification can also be used as a curse against a person, a way of keeping them in a kind of torment for the rest of their existence. Wrongs traditionally punishable by being turned into a zonbi include the theft of land; presumably this was a good way for boko to redress the balance of power a little during colonial times. Whatever the reasons, there are many reported cases of the dead (or presumed dead) returning from the grave in Haiti. One account from 1912 tells of a man suffering from a fever soon after joining a foreign mission church. The head of the mission (a boko?) stated that he saw the man die and generously offered to help with the funeral arrangements. About a week or so later the deceased was found tied to a tree in his burial shroud moaning inarticulately. The man was positively identified by his wife, the doctor who signed his death certificate and the clergyman, but never regained his senses or showed any recollection of his previous life.
* CE (Common Era) being an academic and non religious alternative to AD (Anno Domini).
References
-Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable Millennium Edition (Cassell
Publishers)
-Horror- A thematic History in Fiction and Film by Darryl Jones (Arnold
Publishers)
-A Companion To the Folklore, Myths and Customs of Britain by Marc Alexander
(Sutton Publishing)
-The“Zonbi” portion of this piece is a revised version of
the article Vodu, Tetrodotoxin and the Weekly World -News: The Truth About
Zombies originally published in Puny Earthling #1, August 2006
-Vodu - Visions and Voices of Haiti by Phyllis Galembo (Ten Speed Press)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draugr
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/ghosts.shtml
http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/trows/draugr.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopping_corpse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_revenants#References
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15634c.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Newburgh
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/williamofnewburgh-intro.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pufferfish
http://science.howstuffworks.com/zombie1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura